WNBA player Britney Griner arrested in Russia: updated: wokes expected sellout crowd, nope lol

I think it's very telling that you never hear the "personal responsibility" talking point with Whelan. Only when someone brings up the double standard will they begrudgingly agree.

But it's so damn telling that this talking point hasn't been spammed with Whelan.

 

Why aren't the other multiple countries he has passports for trying to get him out of Russia, too?

 

Biden has brought Reed and Griner home…we’ll see if he can do Whelan next

this is from 2019

The U.S. State Department did not designate Whalen as a "wrongful detainee," and therefore did not offer help from its hostage negotiation team, said Whelan’s twin brother, David.

“That was frustrating,” David Whelan told the Washington Examiner. “Their failure to designate him as a wrongful detainee appears to have been purposeful for strategic or other reasons that they thought would actually benefit Paul rather than hurt him.”

The State Department, while affirming the Whelan family’s criticism of the Russian government’s handling of the situation, did not explain why his case does not warrant a “wrongful detainee” designation. As such, the U.S. government’s Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, which brings to bear an array of government entities, cannot help.

“We have repeatedly raised our concerns regarding the lack of evidence that has been presented in Mr. Whelan’s case,” a State Department spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner, adding the administration supports congressional resolutions calling for his release. “

 

as for Bolton

For all their uncertainty about the exact origins of the case, U.S. officials understood perfectly how the Kremlin wanted it resolved. Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, was “unbelievably explicit” in meetings with White House officials, according to the former U.S. official. Initially, Antonov proposed trading Whelan for three Russians in U.S. prisons: Maria Butina, a woman who had grown close to Republican operatives and National Rifle Association officials, and was convicted of acting as an unregistered Russian agent, in April, 2019; Viktor Bout, a notoriously prolific arms trader who was apprehended in a sting operation in Thailand, in 2008, and convicted by a U.S. court three years later; and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot serving a twenty-year federal sentence for a drug-smuggling plot.

In response, White House officials said that Butina’s case would be resolved in accordance with her eighteen-month sentence; in October, 2019, she was released from U.S. prison and returned to Russia. Freeing Bout, the arms dealer, was considered out of the question. As one U.S. official familiar with the case put it, “It’s like if a major-league team signed me up out of the blue and then tried to trade me for the best player in baseball—we’re not equivalents.”

Antonov kept pushing for Yaroshenko, the pilot convicted of the drug-trafficking plot. He argued that Yaroshenko’s health was deteriorating and cited Whelan’s own problems with an untreated hernia that was causing him great pain. At one meeting, the former U.S. official said, Antonov got “a bit snippy” making his pitch. As the official remembers, Antonov said, “I see your poor guy with a hernia, and here’s our guy with his teeth falling out.” Antonov suggested both Whelan and Yaroshenko could be freed under the guise of a reciprocal medical release.

However Whelan was to be freed, it was clear that any deal would require attention at the highest levels of the White House and the State Department. But that was not forthcoming. Shortly after Whelan was arrested, then national-security adviser John Bolton brought his case to Trump’s attention. “Trump clearly had no interest in doing anything,” a former senior U.S. official said.

Rather than risk a negative response from the President that would tie the hands of U.S. negotiators, the National Security Council staff and officials in other departments decided that the better course of action was to try to negotiate an agreement to secure Whelan’s release at lower levels. The idea, the former senior U.S. official said, was that negotiators might manage to succeed on their own, “and then we can just tell Trump that the guy is out,” or they could get close to a deal and ask Trump for his involvement at the very end: “We could come and say, ‘We’re this close. We just need a little push to get it over the line.’

so Russia wanted a 3 for 1 swap for Whelan, and that was before the war and everything else that’s transpired since

Biden traded Yareshenko for Reed earlier this year, a guy sentenced to 9 years for getting into a drunken fight

 

Do you have a link for this article or did you post it and I just missed it? I want to use it.

 

I got u

https://www.newyorker.com/news/disp...mp-and-thoroughly-soured-us-russian-relations

 

Great the dumbocrats got their virtue signaling in. Especially Kamala who I would have happily traded for Griner

 

Side note: Lord of War is top 10 in my favorite movies, top 3 for Nic Cage movies and I just learned today that the movie is about Viktor Bout

 

Thank you sir!

 

I have a question. Why does everyone keep calling Whelan a Veteran?

 

somebody's lying

White House disputes Saudi, UAE accounts of mediating Griner’s release

https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...di-uae-accounts-of-mediating-griners-release/

excerpt:

The White House on Thursday disputed a joint statement issued by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia that said the countries were involved in mediations efforts related to Brittney Griner’s release from detainment in Russia.

Earlier Thursday, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, touted the success of mediation efforts led by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the release of Brittney Griner in exchange for convicted Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout.

But White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre disputed the notion, telling reporters that "the only countries that negotiated this deal were the United States and Russia." It marked a sharp disconnect between what the joint Saudi-UAE statement said and the U.S. account of the efforts.

When asked about the Saudi-UAE joint statement, Jean-Pierre stressed that she didn’t have anything further to share but that the “the only countries that negotiated this deal where the United States and Russia and there was no mediation involved.”

She added that the U.S. was grateful to the UAE for facilitating the exchange on their territory and that the U.S. was grateful to other countries, including Saudi Arabia, that raised the issue of wrongfully detained Americans with the Russian government.

“But when it comes to her release, it was between the U.S. government and Russia,” she added.
​

more at the link

 

Out of respect, even though he was court martialed, he served this country as a Marine. They should just call him a retired Marine

 

Nope. He is not a Veteran or retired.

 

Why should we respect those that gets court martial especially it they are caught doing something improper? That's like singing praises to criminals

 

The Marine Corps is providing details on the court-martial of an American man who has been detained by Russia on spying charges.

U.S. military records released shortly after his arrest last week showed that Paul Whelan had been convicted at a court-martial of charges that included larceny but did not disclose the nature of his crime.

Court records provided by the Marine Corps headquarters show that he had been accused of attempting to steal more than $10,000 while serving as an administrative clerk in Iraq in 2006. The records show he was also accused of using a false Social Security number on a government computer system and using a false account on the system to grade his own examinations.

Whalen was reduced in rank from staff sergeant to corporal and given a bad conduct discharge from the service.

 

America celebrates criminals everyday in one way or another

 

The guy she was traded for was given the minimum sentence of 25 years in 2011. What’s more important for Americans— saving 10 years imprisoned in a labor camp for an American citizen accused of a victim-less crime, or ensuring this guy stays imprisoned for another 10-14 years (whatever it would end up being) for arms dealing?

Many Republicans don’t seem to mind selling guns to criminals in the US that go on to commit mass murder, or arms trading to governments with horrible human rights records. But keeping this Russian guy behind bars for the full duration of his sentence is really important to them. Go figure.

 

Who is responsible for more american deaths? The merchant of death or Bergdahl's taliban 5?

 

Damn I forgot about that trade. Billy O has to be the negotiator for Obama/ Biden